PERSIC A, PEACH TREE. 53 



for seven or eight years that they grew like trees that were left in the open with quite a 

 beautiful top set on a trunk and extending above the wall. I wanted to re-establish the 

 espalier. I planted young trees between the older ones & sacrificed the latter as an 

 experiment. I sawed off the trunks four inches above where they'd been grafted & 

 covered the cut with earth kneaded in a mortar. All of them except one re-grew & became 

 fine & attractive trees that made the new plantings superfluous. This result proves that the 

 peach tree is not without its own resources. However, since the tree is perhaps rather 

 unique, we can't always count on the same successful result. 



The rules for pruning that we've set out in the discussion on general cultivation 

 would suffice for a skilled grower to manage a peach tree well. But so that no one is 

 liable to misapprehend in that treatment the most important & most difficult points about 

 peach tree cultivation, we'll include here the most widely accepted & successfully 

 performed methods. To avoid useless repetition, we refer the reader to the section on 

 general cultivation for the management of young trees during their early years. We 

 recommend only that the rules be observed more strictly for peach trees than for any 

 other tree. 



METHOD OF BROTHER PHILIPPE. 



"Once the primary branches have formed, I'm no longer concerned about suckers. 

 If some emerge above the primary branches, I believe they should be cut off unless 

 there's an absolute need to fill a space where a large branch has died. Here are my reasons 

 for cutting them off: since the buds are situated very far apart from one another, these 

 branches have to be pruned extremely long & there's a risk of depleting the bottom of the 

 tree because 



